


Into Darkness

by bodysnatch3r



Series: The Hobbit Meme Prompt Fills [3]
Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-13
Updated: 2013-01-13
Packaged: 2017-11-25 09:42:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/637562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bodysnatch3r/pseuds/bodysnatch3r
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kili and Fili fall, as warrior princes and heroes, during the Battle of Five Armies. But they're dragged back to life in another time, and in other bodies, feeling that something is missing, and searching, always, forever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Into Darkness

**Author's Note:**

> A fill for [this prompt](http://hobbit-kink.livejournal.com/2235.html?thread=2359995) over at the Hobbit Meme. Enjoy!
> 
> -
> 
> I got the translations from Khuzdal of Kili and Fili ("laughter" and "joy") from a wonderful, wonderful fic called Children of the Diaspora, which you can find [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/628146/chapters/1135193). Go read it. You won't regret it.

 

> _"i will wait for you,"_   _he said  
> _ _"endlessly."  
> _ _"i will wait for you," so spoke  
> _ _misery._

They fall as heroes and as kings and as animals, crawling in the mud and hands shaking, and it's torn from them, life, torn and dragged through their own blood and the dirt. But Fili manages to reach for Kili, in the darkness looming, and grab him, the youngest's back against his chest, hearts slamming against ribcages in one last desperate attempt to keep on breathing.

But Fili's hands are already growing cold when he clutches his brother, rocking back and forth, and Kili's fingers brush against his brother's jaw, the blond's face buried where the black eyed one's neck meets the shoulder, squeezing as tight as he can. Not letting go.

Not letting go, not now, not ever.

" _I'll find you_ ," Fili hisses and death stains his teeth and runs down his chin in red, hot rivers, matting Kili's hair and his shirt and his chest, his chest torn to shreds. 

"Whatever happens, wherever you go,  _I'll find you_."

* * *

" _Fuck_."

He rolls around and snorts, rubbing sleep out of his eyes and clicking his tongue, bitterness latched onto his teeth. His back hurts, the alarm clock bleeps in his ears.

Phil manages to silence it after a few minutes of groping around his nightstand and pulls himself up, kicking the sheets off the bed. He runs calloused fingers through sweat-matted hair, and the ring of the nightmare still echoes through his skull.

_I'll find you_.

A body whose eyes he couldn't see pressed to his, hands trying to keep blood from overflowing, and yet no matter how hard he fought, it wouldn't stop, soaking minds and fingers and clothes. That little he remembers: the sense of urgency, the scream of ongoing war around them. But the _face_ , the face of whoever he was protecting, to whomever he was making that promise: the face is gone, buried someplace deep down into his subconscious where he can't bring himself to dig. 

A rottweiler whines and nudges its snout, cold and wet, against Phil's fingers, and he smiles, roughly runs his hand over the dog's head.

"Hey there, Laughter."

All the dog does is bark and sit, head tilted to the side.

"You're right. Up I go," Phil says to it, standing, head still swimming in nightmares, in sleep, and stumbling into the bathroom.

He's late for work, but he hasn't been sleeping well recently.

* * *

"Phil!  _Phil_ -"

He glances up from the desk he's been blankly staring at for the past five minutes to see a colleague of his (Tory, redhead, unbearably cheerful) smile down at him and the bags under his eyes, the sunken cheeks and the disheveled blond hair. Or maybe she's just being nice and the paper cup of coffee she's holding has nothing to do with him, or the tiredness, or the nightmares. Either way he gladly accepts it, gives her a small nod of thanks.

"Looks like you need it."

He sips, "Jesus.  _Jesus_  this is gross," and it's revolting, bitter, watery. But the shock wakes him up just a little, makes his eyes sting unpleasantly.

She giggles, all pearly white teeth and hairflips.

"I was just thinking... me and a couple of the others are going out for drinks later, feel like tagging along?"

Phil blinks a few times, dumbfounded, exhausted, unnerved. All he really wants to do is find a couch to crash on for either a few minutes or forever, but he just rubs his eyes and nods: he just wants her out of his way, he wants to stare at nothing and just replay the image of dying, bleeding men over and over and over in his mind, dissect it ad nauseam.

"Yeah, fuck it.  _Sure_."

" _Great_!"

A decision he regrets the minute he speaks, but it's done, a deal sealed in a mind screaming and eyes red and swollen. Somewhere, a phone rings. Once. Twice.

"I think that's--  _yours_." he dares to mutter, one eyebrow arched. It is, after all, and she turns and runs back to her desk and mouths the words " _this evening at six at the Oak Shield_ " and he just smirks at her and waves and gives an uninterested, exhasperated nod. Then he leans his throbbing forehead against the cool white plastic of his keyboard, hitting the 'a' key in the process.

_Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa_ , his word processor yells at him.  _Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa_.

He wishes he could yell back.

* * *

An empty stomach and a tired brain and one drink too many are a stupid decision, and Phil realizes this when his head spins a bit too fast, and he has to sit down, sweating, face buried in his hands. The music's too loud, the lighting's too low, a nausea-inducing combination of reds and oranges and yellows.

But then there's the smell of forests, suddenly, slithering into his nose: forests and boys laughing, the sound of a bow being strung. Rabbits for dinner, the smell of roast. Wrestling on dirt floors, gloved hands pulling dark hair, laughter and punches. Green eyes, black. " _You don't even have a beard yet_."

"Phil? Are you okay?"

Snapped out of vision, out of focus, back into it. He stares at his hands, which shake, for a moment and then he looks up, dragged once again into a pub he doesn't want to be in, with people he thinks he hates.

"I'm...  _fine_."

His tongue tastes of vodka, and it makes his stomach churn: Tory smiles at him and her arm's around another man's shoulders, rumpled checkered shirt and stubble, dark, messy hair falling over his eyes. 

"This a friend of mine, he moved here a couple of months ago."

Phil wipes his hands on his pants and blinks, shaking his head to chase the confusion away as he eyes the newcomer, "Hi. I'm Phil." (it doesn't even sound like his voice).

"I'm Chris."

Chris smirks and outstretches his hand (Phil shakes it) and brushes hair out of his face and right then, right there, there's  _something_ , Phil realizes. Something in the way the dark haired man moves and fidgets and glances around, awkwardly, once she chirps: "Chris is a _teacher_ ," and for some demented reason, Phil finds himself blurting out:

"Do I know you?"

to which the other furrows his brow. "I don't... think so. Where'd you study?"

"Bristol."

"I'm from Dublin."

Phil scoffs at the answer, and smirks.

"Well, then. _Nevermind_."

They both smile and she nods at them and pats Chris on the back before chiming: "Well, I'll leave you two alone!". Phil lets out a worn-down, exhasperated breath the moment she disappears into the crowd.

"... _you can't stand her_."

"Honestly, who _can_."

Chris laughs, low and bemused, " _Then why are you here_?"

"Better to stay up till four AM drunk out of your mind than staring at a ceiling, right?"

Chris points a finger: "Insomniac." he says, voice something along the lines of a playful accusation.

"Know one when you see one?" 

"Something like that. Mind if I offer you a drink?"

_You've had too many_ , Phil's mind whispers to him- and it's true. Although there's something else that's making him feel much more panicked, and it's the same something, the same sense of empty there always is but this time it's _different_ : it's his mind tugging, grabbing him by the hand and telling him,  _you can fix the nothing now_ but not telling him  _how_ , nor _why_. Just telling him he  _can_ in an insanely familiar face and soft, rounded accent. The Irish boy in front of him is something he fears could be _Home_ , someone he's just met, someone whose name the alcohol's already making him forget. And yet laughter rolls of his tongue with such ease it's scary, some part of him tells him that he's known Chris all his life, he just didn't know it, he just hadn't found him yet. _Home_ is something Phil's never had: there's been empty, there's been dark, and cold, and even almost-home, but never Home. Never safe, never whole, always searching. For what?

For the face in the nightmares.

" _Sure_ ," and he smiles, and hopes his green eyes don't betray the darkness churning.

* * *

The alarm clock beeps and he slams his hand against it, shutting it up.

" _Jesus fuck_."

He rolls onto his back and throws an arm over his eyes, already exhausted. At least he got a half hour of sleep, but he'll still need to stop at a Starbucks (the ache between his eyes is clear enough) and there's sweat soaking his forehead, soaking the sheets. Chris buries his face in his hands and rubs his cheeks, tries to get the blood flowing. He lies there for a few more moments, heart thumping, thumbs pressed against the bridge of his nose, tonge running over his teeth, and desperately attempts to will himself out of bed.

He can't be late for work again.

There's a dream he remembers nothing of resting somewhere on his tongue, pressing against the roof of his mouth: a dream that smelled of burning wood and old songs after dinner, and there's glimpses of blond hair, too, and of someone playfully punching him in the back.

He's hungover.

Chris smirks as he thinks about the man he's just met and shared drinks with, but it's nothing but a moment- he doesn't even let his brain fondle the thought of him being so damn familiar, of how those green eyes mirrored something he knows he should remember, of how the smile was something that could've maybe been the right thing in an equation of so many wrongs.

But it's ridiculous, because they've just met. Because it doesn't work and it doesn't make sense, and Chris has known himself as a broken puzzle piece and nothing more for so long that he is a toy missing a vital cog and he has horrendously and exhaustingly grown to accept it, and one almost-drunk blond insomniac can't change those things. Although Phil feels  _different_ than anyone else.

It was how he leaned, lopsided, resting on one arm, so tired his neck was straining to keep him upright, and it's a way of sitting he's seen, thousands of times, in pictures of himself: Chris and Phil sit exactly the same way: a hunched-over, wounded animal, and Chris doesn't want to even begin to admit it to himself. The reality of it is much too strange.

"Get yourself the fuck together," he hisses before throwing himself out of bed.

He's hungover. His mouth tastes of death. The scar on his right shoulder throbs, and not even painkillers are able to quench it.

* * *

He taps a finger on the spine of a book, eyes scanning the ones next to it, as he hums to himself and doesn't even know the title of the song.

He's pulled his hair back, at least this once, and managed to shave, and he doesn't look like a desolate wreck (or so he hopes) and his eyes aren't even watering. He leans against the bookcase for a second the minute he realizes he's actually feeling okay.

Maybe just this once.

Which is exactly when he looks up, and there's ( _ohgodareyoufuckingkiddingme_ ) dark hair, stubble, and an actually moderately ironed plaid shirt staring at him from the other side of the aisle, and his mind slams against his skull: too familiar, too familiar,  _too fucking familiar_ (and the last person he wants to see right now- not that he'd ever imagined of seeing him again).

Chris notices him and walks up, broad smile on his face and Phil's trapped before he can even turn away.

"You're...  _Phil_ , right?"

"Yeah, yep."

"The insomniac from Bristol."

Phil blinks and giggles, "Yeah. That's me. _Chris_ , right?"

"In the flesh."

A smirk and a playful shrug, Chris wonders why he's just gone up to Phil, instead of _ignoring_ him, instead of grabbing his goddamn book about Romans and Greeks and heading out of the door as quickly as possible to bike his way back home and not think about those goddamn green eyes and the way he knows he has to have seen them somewhere else and he wonders why the fuck does it have to be  _him_ of all people who always ends up more fucked in the head than the rest. He realizes he's going to blow through his cigarettes in less than a day, and something tells him it's not entirely healthy.

It's a Saturday.

Saturdays should be  _relaxing_.

And then he freezes in absolute horror as some desolate and idiotic part of his brain sets in motion, and the words: "How about I offer you lunch?" are spoken, and the two men stare at eachother, and Chris is almost tempted to add: "It wasn't me, it was my brain." 

Phil blinks again, suddenly awkward. "You have to stop offering me things." and he gives him a tiny smile.

"I swear to God I'm not gay."

"It wouldn't be an issue if you were."

It feels as if they're both being punched in the face, and it hurts, tremendously, and yet they're going to go on anyway, and neither of them understands why, and neither of them cares, and it's not attraction, it's _not_ \- it's research. It's hunting against their will. For themselves.

They're looking for themselves and they don't know it, it's too much to understand and want at the same time.

It's like jumping into ice water and hoping you won't drown.

* * *

It's a small cafe' and it's not even crowded and there's a chalkboard sign that lists soup specials (mostly vegetarian) and a couple of entrees, and salads, of course, because this looks like a place that serves organic everything and they ask you whether the milk you want is real milk or soy. Chris stirs his coffee absent-mindedly, lipsed pursed and Phil feels the awkwardness start to settle into his bones.

"So, Tory said you were a teacher?"

And talking makes it instantly worse.

"Yeah, history. You know. Greeks, Romans, Alexander the Great."

"Sounds interesting."

"The kids are assholes," and Phil laughs when he says this, "no, it's the age gap, I'm serious. I'm too fucking young for them to really give a shit." 

Phil giggles and picks at his avocado salad, swallows saliva down along with his pending anxiety.

Something feels off, it always does, but Chris for some reason sends him skyrocketing, brings the anxiety and emptiness to unimaginable heights because he's  _there_ and Phil doesn't understand why. He's a second out of grasp and he doesn't _understand why_ , he can't tell why there's something about his smiles that tells him he's already seen them, and that those eyes shining once mirrored stars chased across mountain tops, the laughter was the laughter of kings.

And then it happens.

It starts on the sides: the ring of swords and the taste of blood, arms aching. Sweat dripping into eyes. A vengenceful smirk that expands and grows and bloats until Phil's _inside his own mind_ , and his mind is painted in browns and reds and greens and in the sound of feet beating ground and in two men, and it's _always_ them but yet he's never seen the face of his companion. But this time, it's more vivid than ever, and he's rushing through bodies and searching for a name, a name he can't remember, a word he knows he  _needs to_ remember. But panic fills his every fiber, and he kicks someone down and he snarls, and he's _searching_ ,green eyes that scan for dark hair in a frenzy of blood and tears and death. 

And then Phil, or whatever is supposed to be Phil, this Phil that kills and fights and has twin swords clutched in his hands and blond hair matted with other's blood, the Phil from the dream yells a name. Which rings empty, for a moment, until it solidifies in a boneless scream of anguish.

_KILI_.

And it sticks to the back of his throat.

"... _Phil_?"

Like poison. 

Soft Irish accent that drags him back from the madness, Phil's head snaps up, again, and Chris is staring at him.

"You all right?"

No, _nothing_ is right: the shadow that dies in his arms almost every night has a _name_ now, has a name, has a goddamn, fucking name. Not a face, not yet.

But it has a name. 

And it's _something_.

" _Yeah_ ," he tries to mutter, and knows he sounds more panicked than he should, because Chris furrows his brow, "do you know what time it is?"

The dark-haired pulls out his phone, it's two PM and it's the _perfect_ excuse to calm the rush that's just taken hold of his ragged little brain: Phil shoots up, feigns another appointment, lies through his teeth and hopes the tremors stop, hopes he can calm himself long enough to thank Chris and to walk across the room and to drag himself out of the place, leaving the other staring at his back, more dumbfounded than ever.

Phil makes it past the corner before his knees give out, and there's a name clenched between his teeth, and his mind is spinning.

_Kili_ , Kili, Kili.

There's a  _name._ There's something he can hold on to.

* * *

He has no idea why he goes to parties.

Maybe it's the need for alcohol, or maybe he hates being alone so much he might as well be miserable someplace crowded. Not that the balcony is exactly the most crowded place in his friend's apartment, but at least he can watch the people on the other side, and it feels like something along the lines of a very depressing fishtank. He downs another drink and it burns the back of his throat, and Phil squints, clicks his tongue, swallows hard, giving his back to lights and music and commotion.

"You shouldn't drink."

He turns around all of a sudden and his eyes meet Chris', and he sighs.

"And you shouldn't smoke. Or follow me around."

The Irishman shrugs and lights himself another cigarette, smirks and scratches his cheek.

"Coincidences, I _swear_."

Phil smirks back raises his glass, "Coincidences don't exist."

"They do for me. Want a fag?"

"Don't smoke."

Chris gives him an admired nod. " _But you drink_."

"Everyone chooses their poisons."

Phil smirks, bitter, while he talks, and Chris has to catch himself before his mind trips and tells him: " _You've known him all your life_ ," knowing very well that if that happens, it's over. He's happy with just the nag and the emptiness. He doesn't need the confusion or the bullshit. 

_He cannot possibly already know Phil_ , and that is all he is letting himself accept. But he knows his new... acquaintance, for lack of a better word, drinks just a little too much: he's seen it in himself. So he decides to keep an eye on him throuought the night.

Just in case.

And Phil drinks, and drinks, and drinks, more than he ever has in a public situation: finding the name, learning that bloody, blasted name has done nothing to help or cure or fill him. It rings out now, over, and over, and over, throuought sleepless nights and during endless days. An echo of something that is even more maddening than knowing nothing, because now the emptiness is even more evident. And whatever he's searching for, it slips further and further out of reach.

And then he makes it: he gets so drunk he can't even stand up. He gets so drunk he goes numb.

He gets so drunk he's vomiting into the kitchen sink, and the other guests glare at him, somehow pitying him, somehow disgusted. 

"Oh,  _fuck_." Chris is standing next to him. He doesn't even know why. Maybe he pities Phil too, pities a man that reminds him so much of himself, for better or for worse.

"I'm  _fine_ ," Phil blurts out in reply, eyes watering and stinging and red.

"Bullshit. I'm taking you home."

"No, I'm fine. Really."

" _You're fucking coming with me_."

He grabs him by an arm and hawls him out, drags him down the stairs and into his car. There's a general sense of betrayal coating his every move, almost as if Phil drinking is Phil breaking a promise, like a brother who'd sworn to get off of the alcohol, and the next thing you know he's vomiting into your flower pots.

But he brushes it off, like everything else, and clutches the steering wheel until his knuckles go white.

They drive quietly, Phil hunched over and tiny and rammed in a corner, cheek pressed to the window, and Chris staring at the road and glancing over every once in a while, and his jaw is set, eyes burning in his skull. He realizes he doesn't know where the other lives, but he has a couch (lumpy and old and wrecked) and for a night, he hopes it'll do. They stop in front of his house and he helps Phil step out.

Phil's mind cracks right then and there, and he's a thousand percent sure it's nothing but the alcohol. But he lets himself fall into the memory, into whatever his mind is feeding him without an ounce of resistance. And it plays out like a million times before.

Run, search, call his name, and then he's hurt, and then you're holding him.

And then you see his face.

_And then you finally see his goddamn, fucking face_.

And the face Phil sees is a slick jaw and stubble and long, tangled black hair, and it's something he's always known and that suddenly hits him like a blow to the kidneys, and then he realizes it. And then he  _understands_. This is _him_ (is it him?  _Can it even be him_?) and this is a friend and something more, a bond that is less deep than lovers (or maybe even deeper, he can't even tell) but it's _him_.

And, suddenly, the body he holds night after night has eyes he's staring into that go blank in a breath and it's eyes he knows and it's eyes he _fucking knows_. And the alcohol makes bile hit the back of his throat and the Phil outside is vomiting on the curb, Chris holding his hair back cursing quietly to himself, but the Phil inside has a different name, and it's  _Fili_ , and it rolls off his brain into darkness.

And _Kili_ , who he can tell now, who he knows now, is Chris.

Suddenly, he understands. The pieces klick. It falls into place.

_They're brothers_ , and they've fallen in battle, and they're puzzle pieces lost, and broken, and Chris is the missing cog. It doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense except for a nightmare and twin swords left abandoned in the mud and hands holding back blood and tongues holding back tears and promises muttered in dying breaths. It doesn't make sense because _it can't be_.

But it is, it is,  _it is_.

"Right. Let's get you inside."

Chris grabs him and helps him walk up the stairs, wipes his mouth with his sleeve and slips his shoes off, lets Phil crash into his bed (he'll take the couch, just this once) and Phil is shaking under the covers and never has he been so lucid and so scared, never has he felt so empty, never has joy been so painful. 

He has every answer now. He wishes he didn't.

He sleeps and his is a fitful, panicked sleep, and so is Chris'.

They dream of mountain ranges fighting, they dream of hands reaching and finding emptiness.

* * *

Phil wakes up well past noon and his mouth tastes of bile and of blood and of nothing. And he stares at the ceiling for what feels like an hour, in a house he knows isn't his. There's snippets from the night before and a roaring chasm where he knows should be relief.

He rolls on his side and shuts his eyes, and then there's the sound of a door creaking open. 

"How are you feeling?"

He opens an eye and Chris is standing in the doorway, a mug in his hand.

"Shitty," he moans, and then the smell of coffee attacks his nose, making him gag. He buries his face in a pillow.

"I made lunch, if you're interested," Chris tentatively mumbles.

" _I'm sorry about_ -"

"It's _okay_. I've had drunk friends all my life."

Phil looks up and the other's smile is bitter and lonely and sad. A pang of guilt punches him in the gut, and all of a sudden he can't even look at him, all of a sudden he wishes he could disappear. Because he knows, and it just doesn't feel  _right_.

But he accepts the food nonetheless, although it feels heavy and disgusting in his wretched shattered stomach, and they eat without talking, Chris perched on the couch's armchair, Phil sitting on the floor. He wants to die.

He wants to drown, to escape, to avoid looking at a man (his _brother_ , his brother from another fucking life, the thing that's been missing all along) whose dying body he held, and suddenly his mind yells at him: the migraine starts from the back of his neck deep into his mouth. And nothing makes sense, and it feels as if everything is rushing out from under his hands, and he feels like vomiting again.

He doesn't.

He pushes around his plate most of the food, and there's words hidden inside his chest, begging to come out. Phil prays and begs them to stay there, because he's already gone mad enough. He doesn't need to add to it.

He doesn't have to.

But it still feels off, it still feels wrong. And he needs to fix it before the poison eats him out completely. But not today. Not right now, he can't talk, he realizes. He can't think. He can't mention a single thing that's been going on behind his clenched teeth and tense jaw.

So he thanks for the food, "Will you be okay?" "Of course I will!" and forces a smile. Chris stops him before he leaves, though, and hands him his phone number, asks for his, and for his address. 

"Just in case something happens." ( _Again_  isn't said, but it hangs between them.)

He walks home, gets lost twice, and wishes he were dead. 

* * *

"You've been ignoring me."

The voice claws at him and Phil curses under his breath. Maybe it was stupid, to go at that cafe'.  _The_  cafe'.

Maybe it was just him being a masochist. Maybe he needs his brother, after all. His absentee brother.

"I've been busy with work."

_Liar_.

"You could've at least answered one of my fucking texts."

"Since when do you  _care_ , Chris? We barely even know eachother."

He's cold. He is cold and scared and wounded and he nearly calls him _Kili_. But stops himself just in time. 

And he wonders. Phil wonders if Chris knows as much as he does, he wonders if his insomnia isn't because of the same exact dreams and nightmares, he wonders if he ever stands in the middle of the grocery store as memories rush around him like hallucinations, and sometimes he can nearly touch them.  _Memories_ , yes, because there can only be one explanation: past life, different bodies, same soul.

Ridiculous, demented, insane. An explanation fit for a madman.  _Insomnia's started taking its toll_ , he think. And nearly laughs.

Chris grabs a chair and sits across from him.

"Maybe I just fucking like you. It happens, they're called  _friends_."

It's raining outside. A cold, merciless storm that coats London in grey and drowns out sounds and emotions, makes Phil wish he could let himself be taken by the river, flow out to sea, flow out to nothing.

"I never asked you to be my friend."

(But even Chris can't understand why he cares  _so damn much_ , why he's taken the (older, five years older, he asked Tory) man so under his wing, why he checks up on him and wishes he could curb the addiction- or he can, but doesn't want to face it, never wants to begin to understand it.)

" _Jesus_ , Phil."

"What?"

Chris blinks and smirks, mad and dumbfounded. "Nothing. _Nevermind_."

" _I think I know why you can't sleep_."

Phil wishes he could take that back the moment he says it. But it's too late, isn't it? And his stomach drops, his hands shake. He's shaking. 

He's fucking shaking, and everything feels like a dream.

"It's the same exact reason why I can't."

Chris' eyes glaze over. "Shoot," he hisses.

"Do you believe in reincarnation?"

"... _what_ _?_ "

"Reincarnation. You know, different bodies, same souls-"

"I know what reincarnation fucking is."

Chris is tense, much more tense than before. He's tense because there's a tiny voice in his head that's about to tell him that everything he's ever known was right, and that there has been a part missing all along.

But he can't let himself believe it. Because if he does, he knows he'll go crazy.

"What. What would you say, if I told you I know why it  _hurts_."

He insantly knows what Phil's talking about. And he clenches his fists. It hurts, it hurts, it hurts in all the deepest places and in every inch of himself. It's been hurting all his life.

"I'd say you were a fucking nut job."

It burns, whiplash across his face. But Phil ignores it, perfectly aware that he is fucking himself over, that he's gone much too far. That there's no going back.

"What if I told you- and his voice is shaking- that we were brothers once?"

" _No_."

Chris stands up abruptly, turns around without even saying a word and he's out, far, walking briskly down the street. Phil doesn't know why he stands up, too. Why he runs after him, glass doors slamming behind him as he makes his way out. Maybe it's because some little part of him keeps on telling him that, after all, Chris might stay.

Or maybe, it's just because he's a masochist.

"Chris. _CHRIS_!"

He doesn't stop- of course he doesn't- and he pulls the collar of his leather jacket up against the wind instead, shoulders hunched, and Chris' mind is aflame, rushing and running because it makes sense, doesn't it? The arms holding him in every nightmare, the ones where he's dying- they must belong to someone. And maybe that's why he immediately clicked with Phil. Maybe that's why he feels he needs to look after an idiot older brother ( _nononono don't think that you fucking idiot don't you fucking dare think that he is not. your. brother._ ) with an alcohol problem, maybe that's why he felt he had to call him, to watch over him, to offer him lunch, to be his friend.

Maybe that's why he knew Phil was Home. Maybe that's why he never let himself in.

" _KILI_!"

Phil's voice roars and reaches him and then Chris stops. Because he has to, the minute he hears _that_ name.

He stops but doesn't turn around. The pitter-patter of Phil's feet into puddles, Phil who stops just a little behind him.

But Chris knows he can't do this anyway. Even though he stopped.

It's too much, it's far too fucking much to take in.

"You have a scar-"

" _Don't_ -" Irish accent thick in his rage, but it's too late to stop Phil. Phil is beyond caring. Phil is gone.

" _You have a scar on your right shoulder_ and I don't know how you got it in this life and I don't care but in  _that_ life. In that life it was a hunting accident, and you bled so much I had to carry you home and mother didn't talk to me for a week and I was so. Scared. Of losing you, Kili-"

"DON'T CALL ME THAT!" he yells and flips around and no, his hands are shaking. "How the fuck do you know? How the fuck do you know about that _dream_?"

"Because it  _isn't_ a dream, it's a memory."

Chris scoffs and shakes his head and he knows Phil is right, he knows it so damn fucking well, but fear is stronger. Fear weighs him down.

"What do you _want_ , Phil?"

"I want my  _brother back_."

"You don't  _have a brother_."

"I have  _you_ -"

"Jesus you're fucking INSANE! You're a fucking _psycho_."

" _Please_."

Phil's green eyes are brimming with tears and they are bottomless, empty, nothing, desperate, the absence of life itself. The last plead of a man who's losing something he never even had.

"Please."

And it's what scares Chris the most, what makes him take a step back and shake his head and say, "No." for the millionth time (a two letter word that weighs more than anything) and turn around, cursing himself.

It's what doesn't make him stay.

* * *

He holds on for a week without any contact, without checking his phone, without calling, without thinking, even, about blond hair matted by rain and tears mixing with water, green eyes turning empty and dull.

Chris manages to hold on for a week before he breaks down and skits through his contacts with regretful, guilty, shaking hands, before he calls and there's no answer.

He holds on for eight days, before his phone rings while he's in the middle of class, and he ignores it until it rings again, and again, vibrating against his leg. And he asks the kids to be excused, and nobody seems to care.

"Tory, I really _can't_ -"

"There's been an accident."

His bones go cold, all of a sudden, and his blood stops flowing.

"An... an accident?"

Words knotting with his tongue, making his brain trip and fall.

"Yes. Oh, God, Chris. Chris, _Phil_ 's-" and then there's talks of an overdose, of a coma, of doctors not knowing what to do, of "I thought you should know since you'd somehow grown close," of endless "I'm sorry"s.

"It's okay."

It's not, but he hangs up anyway. And then he realizes that he's about to lose his job, because he doesn't look back, he doesn't stop, he doesn't say a word.

He just marches out of the building, and starts to run.

* * *

The hospital smells of rubbing alcohol, of emptiness, of white. Of nothing, of endless, horrible nothing and neverending waits, and the elevator is the epitome of it all, the strained heart of a horrible beast.

Chris leans his sweaty forehead against the metal wall, chest still heaving, heart beating strong and fast in his ears. There's a woman standing next to him, eyes full of pity. And it gets worse when the doors ding and he knows he's at IC, and he can almost feel her eyes brimming with mercy as he drags his own carcass out.

"How can I help you?" the nurse at the desk asks, her face strained in a horrible fake smile that just _brims_ with hypochrisy. 

"I'm here to. Oh God- hand rubbing his face, for a moment, and it hurts to talk, it hurts to _think_ \- See someone."

"Name?"

"Phil. Philip O'Durin."

The sound of her perfectly manicured pink nails hitting the keyboard feel like expertly placed kicks to the back of Chris' neck, and he leans against the desk, forehead resting on yellowish plastic.

"Relation?"

"Sorry?"

"We can only let family in."

He nearly laughs to her face.  _Family_. Oh, if it hadn't been for _family_ this would've never happened.

"I'm. _Jesus_. I'm his _brother_."

_Liar_. (Not quite).

She doesn't believe him, this is more than clear. But she nods anyway, "Third door to the left." and Chris is so, damn, grateful, and yet at the same time he wonders if the floor won't cave in and swallow him whole.

It doesn't, of course it doesn't.

So he has to force himself to walk into a room made of plastic and whizzing machines and pouches of blood and of saltwater and minerals and nothing, lungs that aren't even breathing, hands that don't twich.

An empty shell: whatever that is, encased in a hospital bed in a picture-perfect armor of tubes, is  _not_ Phil.

"Oh,  _fuck_ ," Chris blurts out once he's inside and once the door's shut, letting himself fall on the chair next to the bed. "Oh fuck, oh fuck oh  _fuck_ , Phil. What the fuck have you _done_."

He stares at the emptiness in front of him and buries his face in his hands and tries so hard not to cry, not to break down. Not so soon. 

But he starts crying anyway and curses himself for doing so. And for a while, there's nothing but his long, drawn out, ragged sobs: barely silenced, barely kept back, shoulders trembling, he doesn't even bother cleaning himself up.

Hands knotted together and pressed to his forehead.

"I'm  _sorry_. I'm so fucking  _sorry_."

But the words ring out and never get an answer and never will, they bounce off his ears and into the void, and he realizes there is no way he is going to will himself to stop crying.

"Fuck, Phil. Jesus Christ, you're a fucking  _idiot_. You're a-- oh God. I just."

Palms pressed hard over his eyes. Chris sees red.

"I'm sorry I said those things I'm sorry I did what I.  _Fuck_ \- he stands up and shoves the chair and starts pacing- I'm sorry. I'm so goddamn fucking sorry."

Chris leans against the metal railing at the foot of the bed and sighs and looks at the green sheets and then back up, and what he's about to say rests heavy on his cracking spine.

"I  _believe you_."

And it's the truth. And it hurts more than anything.

"And I want. I want you to wake up and fucking tell me this isn't my  _fault_. I want you to tell me that this.  _This isn't my fault_."

But he knows it is. They both do, one in his red-hot tears and the other in his quietness, in immoble shut eyes.

"I want my _brother back_." Head thrown back and hands shaking. "I want my _missing piece_."

Grief pounding beneath his skin.

"... _excuse me_?"

Chris looks towards the door, startled, and there's a small, small man standing in the doorway, blad patch, mousy eyes.

"I'm Doctor Greyhound. Grievance councellor."

Chris stares at him blankly, wipes his cheeks with the cuff of his shirt and nods. 

"Okay," is all he can manage to say, because a grievance councellor means Phil is never going to wake up.

"If you need anything, anything at all. I'm available."

"Okay _._ "

The man takes a few steps forward, grey fingers holding a white printed card, with a number and an address and, Dr. Greyhound, Psychologist written in fancy black print. Chris plans on burning it the minute he gets home.

"Anything at all," the mouse-man says again, giving Chris yet another sickly sweet smile, before shuffling out of the room.

"Thank you." is rusty nails thrust deep through his tongue. He waits for the footsteps to fade before nearly crawling to the head of the bed, and brushing blond hair out of a pale face, and the tears are gone, but his breathing is still rattling, and speaking sounds as wrong as ever.

But there's a name and words he doesn't have to force himself to say, he realizes: after all, he's been dreaming them every night of his life, ever since he was a boy.

"Fili?" he asks just by knowing, and the name sounds more right than any _Phil_ ever has, and he tricks himself into not expecting an answer.

"Whatever happens, wherever you go,  _I'll find you_."

* * *

He's late for work.

Again.

He's _always_ late for work, but this time he's _horribly_ late for work, and Charlie curses under his breath as he rushes down the sidewalk, New York screaming and howling around him and his dog.

"Jesus. Fucking Christ," he spats as he bumps into a woman and stumbles. There's a hobo sitting, back resting against a wall, who glances up when he brushes his suit off.

"Care to spare a dollar for a dreamer?" the green eyed man asks, dirty blond hair brushed behind his ears.

Charlie glares at him and then stops, startled, for a moment, and stares at his face. He simply shrugs.  _Sure, why not_.

"That's a nice dog you got there, sir." the blond says, and nudges towards the german shepherd. "What's its name?"

"Her name's Joy," Charlie says absent-mindedly, digging through his pockets for a dollar note. "What's yours?" he asks as he hands it to him.

"Finn."

He snatches it with gloved hands.

"I'm Charlie."

"And God bless ya."

But Charlie fidgets for a second longer and seems to think, then, about something or someone much too far away.

"I swear to God I've seen your face someplace before," he finally says. "Do you mind if I offer you a coffee?"

 


End file.
